THEATRE PANIC AVERTED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12609, 25 June 1904, Page 2 (Supplement)

THEATRE PANIC AVERTED.

POLICEMAN BRANDISHES CLUB *TO ; CALM the AUDIENCE. A bkpetition of the Chicago Iroquois Theatre fire disaster was averted one night in New York, largely through the admirable handling of a nervous theatre audience by the police. About nine o'clock in the evening a fire was discovered in Proctor's Harlem Variety Theatre, formerly the .• Columbus Theatre. It was in the front of thr building, on the third floor, used as offices. A policeman discovered the blaze, and he immediately notified Fire Company No. 14, which is next door to the theatre. He also sen* in a harry call for the police reserves of th» thirtysecond precinct, whose headquarters are but a block awav. lb- police, in charge of Captain McNally, came round on the run, and when they got inside the theatre they found the manager announcing to the audience that a fire had broken out, and that everyone must leave immediately. ..' A "woman in the stalls thereupon shouted at the top of her voice, Fire," and started; "to climb over the seat?. Captain McNally, drawing his big night club, over '2ft long, rushed part way down the centre aisle; and flourishing it in the 'iir shouted that at the first sign of anyone starting a stampede he and his merit would club their heads off. Then he directed the audience to rise quietly, and move along the aisles slowly. The calmness of" the captain" quieted the audience, and m six minutes the theatre was deserted, no one being injured, the only incident being the fainting of the woman who had shouted "Fire." When she came to she explained that she thought the captain, when be came down the aisle with his clnb, intended to hit her, and she had fainted from fright at this, and not because of the fire.